Doctor of Education (Ed.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2017, Leadership Studies

Research on employee engagement has found that it can both positively and negatively affect organizational performance, including recruitment, retention, customer service, and profitability. Hence, businesses are investigating how to increase engagement and in turn their bottom line. Several studies have concluded that effective organizational communication practices can enhance employee engagement. However, the way that information is distributed within organizations is now becoming increasingly complex with globalization. This has led to the increase use of information communication technologies (ICTs) to communicate since leaders and employees are not often in the same location. While ICTs are more efficient and cost effective, they can lead to miscommunication and lack of engagement when used to communicate important information. Based on the link between leadership communication and engagement and the increased use of ICTs in organizations, this quantitative study attempted to measure employee engagement and what, if any, relationship exists frequency of communication, richness of communication channels, quality of leader-member exchange relationship, and perceived satisfaction with organizational communication. In order to examine the relationship between these variables, 265 full-time employees completed a survey made of four instruments— Dennis Communication Climate Inventory (1974), Leader-Member Exchange-7 (1984), Communication Channel Instrument (1999), and the Schaufeli and Bakker's (2003) Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES). The results of this study revealed that perceived organizational communication satisfaction has the most significant relationship with employee engagement, followed by the quality of leader-member exchange relationship. However, the frequency of lean, moderate, and rich communication channels did not have a significant impact on employee engagement. This includes ICTs categorized within these three channels. The frequent use (open full item for complete abstract)

PHD, Kent State University, 2016, College of Communication and Information / School of Communication Studies

This study examined how parents communicate with their preschool-aged children (aged 2 to 5) about nutrition and how such parent-child interactions can shape the way preschoolers think about and approach eating. Parents (N=202) reported on their typical nutritional communication with their preschoolers and their perceptions of preschoolers' eating-related attitudes and behaviors. Exploratory factor analysis revealed that parents exchange both verbal nutritional messages (i.e., explanatory, punishing contingency, rewarding contingency, and restrictive) and nonverbal nutritional messages (i.e., healthy modeling, unhealthy modeling, and monitoring) with their preschool-aged children. Findings contribute to a more specific and comprehensive understanding of nutritional communication processes among parents and preschoolers and provide a new instrument for measuring parental nutritional communication. In addition, multiple regression analysis suggested that parental nutritional messages can influence parental perceptions of preschoolers' eating-related attitudes and behaviors in both productive and maladaptive fashions. According to their parents' perspectives, preschoolers were more likely to know that healthy eating is important and were more likely to care about the benefits of proper nutrition when their parents communicated using explanatory messages and healthy modeling messages. Preschoolers whose parents said that their children had these positive attitudes toward nutrition also were perceived to be more apt to engage in healthy eating patterns. Furthermore, parents' healthy modeling messages were found to predict their perceptions of preschoolers' healthy eating patterns, and parents' unhealthy modeling messages predicted parental perceptions of preschoolers' unhealthy eating patterns. Results add to theoretical and practical knowledge of the connections between parental nutritional communication and parental perceptions of preschoolers' eating-related a (open full item for complete abstract)

PHD, Kent State University, 2024, College of Communication and Information

Personalization for users can be a desired outcome of their interactions with social media algorithms (e.g., liking certain content to suggest they want more of it). This level of interaction can depend on users' awareness and affective evaluations of the algorithm. However, considering these two contextual influences, how do users perceive and subsequently act in response to social media algorithms predicting private information about the user that they do not wish the algorithm to know or understand? Over the course of two online survey studies, this dissertation integrates the Communication Privacy Management (CPM) theoretical framework (Petronio, 2002; 2013) into the human-machine communication (HMC) context. Users' experiences of privacy breakdowns and recalibration strategies with social media algorithms collected in the first study were used to develop and test two preliminary measures: the algorithmic privacy breakdown measure and the algorithmic privacy repair measure. We argued that, in addition to the preliminary measure, users' awareness of and attitudes towards social media algorithms, both positive and negative, play a crucial role in predicting their interaction behavior, regulating their desired co-ownership (i.e., granting the algorithm access to private information), and determining how the degree of co-ownership influences their breakdown experiences and the strategies they employ to rectify these breakdowns. Results suggest that greater positive attitudes predict greater co-ownership of private information with the algorithm. However, greater awareness and negative attitudes predict the inverse. Those with more awareness and negative attitudes are less likely to allow private information to be known by social media algorithms. Breakdown experiences involving targeted ads related to intimate personal information led to greater use of recalibration practices that adjust their platform settings, resemble human-algorithm interplay, and severe pulling (open full item for complete abstract)

PHD, Kent State University, 2023, College of Communication and Information

This research examines emergency health communication with college students during the early phase of the 2019 coronavirus pandemic to provide better insights for emergency planning and to ensure success in early-stage communication efforts. Trust and confidence in various spokespersons are tested, along with students' levels of cooperation with nationwide and college-level directives. To fill a gap in the current emergency preparedness literature, this research also focuses on the communication needs and cultural perspectives of international students on American college campuses. Based on the Trust, Confidence and Cooperation (TCC) Model and its ability to predict cooperation with health directives, this study tested and further defined the aspects of trust and confidence in contributing to public cooperation during a health emergency - in this case, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak. The study also evaluated whether the TCC Model could be applied to foreign residents, such as international students, during such an emergency. While better understanding the path to cooperation for international students, the lessons learned can be applied to both college and immigrant populations nationwide. Problematic operationalizations within the TCC Model are clarified and tested in hopes of better defining the variables involved in the model, and new variables, such as cultural competence, are tested for fit.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2022, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Over the past few decades, the ubiquity of radio-frequency (RF) devices has improved connectivity and productivity in our lives through wireless communication and sensing technologies. To this end, vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication and vehicular radar imaging technologies have become the key enablers of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) to promote safety, automation, and coordination in traffic. To enable V2X communication, a limited amount of bandwidth in the 5.9 GHz spectrum is dedicated to vehicles for the exchange of basic safety messages with low latency. However, with the large-scale deployment of connected vehicles, the V2X-dedicated band faces the spectrum scarcity problem that lowers the reliability of vehicular communication. The scarcity of dedicated spectrum also limits the feasibility and capabilities of more advanced vehicular applications that rely on broadband communication. Besides, up to 4 GHz of contiguous bandwidth is allocated as the vehicular radar spectrum that is dedicated solely to vehicles in the 76-81 GHz millimeter-wave (mmWave) bands. To supplement V2X communication, the under-utilized vehicular radar spectrum can be leveraged by joint radar-communication (JRC) systems. The objective of JRC is to perform both data transmission and radar imaging using the same \textit{joint} waveform and transceiver hardware. In this dissertation, we investigate transmission optimization and scheduling approaches to enable vehicular JRC in mmWave bands using adaptive orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM). First, we study the joint waveform design problem for wideband vehicular JRC. By exploiting the frequency-selectivity in wideband channels, we adaptively design subcarrier coefficients of OFDM to achieve long-range detection and communication performance. We show that the problem is a non-convex quadratically constrained quadratic programming (QCQP), which is NP-hard. As an alternative to existing approaches, we propose time (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2019, English

The fast growth of globalization and internationalization of businesses have necessitated developing intercultural business communication. Professionals in today's global job market, particularly those working in multilingual environments, need to be able to communicate with people from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. In this global, technological network, English language competency is for many at the forefront of communication skills needed because of a need for a common lingua franca for international communication. In order to better facilitate communication among native English speakers (NES) and non-native English speakers (NNES), we need to recognize and prepare to help students and professionals work in global multicultural and multilingual contexts. In this dissertation, I argue that we need to look in depth at oral and written professional communication in global contexts. I use frame of English for Specific Purposes (ESP), and I seek to answer how NNES and NES professionals communicate in multilingual, multicultural workplace environment using English as a lingua franca. Focusing on companies in the Gulf States, I conducted 27 interviews with NES and NNES professionals from a wide variety of companies and positions, and I received survey responses from more than 120 NES and NNES professionals. The results show first-person accounts of the challenges faced and opportunities created in the multilingual, multicultural workplace context and detail when and why English or Arabic is used for what purpose. From these accounts, I draw detailed recommendations for business communication pedagogy and curriculum to aid all professionals (both NES and NNES). Some of the recommendations for corporate workplace training and for professional communication education in native-English and non-native English countries include: the importance of self-awareness in language usage for both NES and NNES professionals, the need for cultural intelligenc (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, 2019, EECS - Electrical Engineering

This thesis comprises work supporting the integration of a Canfield joint (carpal wrist) in the Integrated Radio and Optical Communication project at NASA Glenn Research Center. The Canfield joint is a 3 DoF (degree of freedom) parallel linkage used for pointing a range of end effectors. Several tests were devised and performed to validate an existing prototype for optical pointing requirements including field of regard, pointing resolution, and slew rate for a trajectory between Earth and Mars; these requirements were partially satisfied. A kinematic analysis of the robot is performed, including forward and inverse kinematics and preliminary singularity analysis, and the effect of altering the ratio of base and leg lengths is investigated. Designs for physical models of the Canfield joint, produced using rapid prototyping, are presented, as are computer models produced for use in Geogebra and Robot Operating System.

MS, University of Cincinnati, 2006, Arts and Sciences : Biological Sciences

I investigated the importance of the seismic component, substratum-borne vibrations, of the multimodal courtship display in the wolf spider Schizocosa ocreata (Hentz) (Araneae: Lycosidae). It is currently known that the visual signaling component of male multimodal courtship displays conveys condition-dependent information, and that females can use this signal alone in mate choice decisions. I found that isolated seismic signals are also used in mate choice, as females preferred males that were louder, higher pitched and with shorter signaling pulses. Results also showed that male seismic signals are dependent on current condition and may convey information about male size and body condition. Seismic signals and visual signals are likely redundant, although some aspects of seismic signals may convey different information, supporting both the redundant and multiple messages hypotheses.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2012, Human Ecology: Human Development and Family Science

Parental sexual messages received by adolescents has been researched, but mainly in the context of maternal sexual communication; research around influences of paternal sexual communication is minimal. In addition, there have been no studies found that research parental (mothers and fathers) sexual messages adolescents receive and how they influence adolescent sexual assertiveness or sexual experience. The current study seeks to explore these relationships as well as the adherence to the sexual double standard. A random sample of 6000 domestic, undergraduate students (18-24 years old) was sampled; 1222 self-reported heterosexuals consented to the confidential, on-line survey and of these, 1178 participants the completed the “paternal” and 1186 completed the “paternal” sexual messages scales. Findings suggest there is a statistically significant relationship between most parental sexual messages adolescents receive and adolescent sexual assertiveness and sexual experiences. For instance, an increased amount of “positive” sexual messages are related to higher self-reported adolescent sexual assertiveness and “negative” sexual messages are related to lower self-reported adolescent sexual assertiveness. Additional research is recommended to include other potential factors such as sexual messages received from media, peers, and religion to study to extent of these influences on adolescent sexual assertiveness and sexual experiences.

Master of Technical and Scientific Communication, Miami University, 2009, English

This internship report discusses my 14-week internship as a technical writer intern with the Houston, Texas office of Golder Associates Inc. (Golder), completed from January 2009 through April 2009. My primary role at Golder was to provide technical review of the communications generated from the environmental, oil and gas, and waste management sectors served by the Houston office. The report is broken down into four chapters that reflect on my overall internship experience, my coursework in the MTSC program, and my perception of technical communication. The first chapter provides an overview of Golder, the organizational culture, and my role in the organization. The second chapter describes the various projects I worked on during my internship. The third chapter examines one large project in close detail. Finally, the fourth chapter examines the impact of the economic crisis on Golder's culture and its impact on technical communicators in similar organizations.

PHD, Kent State University, 2011, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Sociology and Criminology

The therapeutic efficacy of the patient-physician interaction plays a central role in medicine. Many factors impact the patient-physician interaction, and ultimately affect health outcomes. Health follows a social gradient. Being poor matters to health and health care access in the U.S. with socioeconomic status being a strong, consistent predictor of morbidity and mortality. Health disparities include differences in health status; access to, utilization, and quality of care; and health care delivery. Unequal treatment of patients on the basis of their personal or group characteristics warrants attention, unequal treatment not justified by the patient's underlying health condition or treatment preference. This dissertation examined the relationship between patient socioeconomic status and patient satisfaction, and determined if patient-physician communication mediated this relationship. Three hypotheses were tested though secondary analyses of data from the Direct Observation of Primary Care study, a landmark multi-method study representing the most comprehensive glimpse into the content and context of family medicine outpatient visits to date. The data supported hypothesis 1. Patients' insurance status related significantly to physician-patient communication. Patients insured by Medicaid had visits that were significantly more physician-centered. In addition, male patients, patients with better physical health, and patients whose visits were more complex had visits that were more patient-centered. Conversely, as patients' mental health improved, the visits became more physician-centered. Results were mixed for hypothesis 2. Satisfaction with the care-delivery site was unrelated to communication but was significantly related to patient age and overall health with older and healthier patients rating the site significantly higher. Communication related significantly to satisfaction with the physician and overall satisfaction. Satisfaction with the physician and o (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2013, Mass Communication (Communication)

This study aims to contribute to the theoretical development and the effective practice of Communication for Social Change by exploring the application of the principles and ideas of Complexity Science to Communication for Social Change endeavors. The study provides a theoretical framework for the analysis of Communication for Social Change initiatives and presents guidelines for organizations, including both practitioner organizations and donor agencies, interested in using Complexity Science principles and ideas to inform their Communication for Social Change strategies. The study employs an interpretive approach and an instrumental case study method of inquiry. Five principles distilled from the literature on Complexity Science are used to identify examples from the work of Puntos de Encuentro, a feminist, non-profit organization working in Communication for Social Change in Central America, in order to illustrate how Complexity Science principles can be applied to Communication for Social Change strategies and to explore possible challenges and implications, for organizations working in the field of Communication for Social Change, of applying these principles in their work. The major conclusions and insights of the study are, first, that Complexity Science can provide social change organizations, development agencies, donors, scholars and policy makers with a useful framework for addressing complex social issues and it may make Communication for Social Change strategies more effective at creating social change, and second, that Communication for Social Change strategies need to be supported by organizational cultures that guarantee a shared vision and directions and promote power decentralization, self-organizing and innovation as this is what provides organizations with the level of flexibility and adaptability required by a continuously changing environment. The study concludes with a set of recommendations that aim to serve as guidelines for Communicat (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2024, Educational Studies

A subset of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have limited or no functional communication skills and need augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) to meet their communication needs. One evidence-based form of AAC, Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS), involves a child exchanging picture icons with a communication partner for desired items. In this study, I aimed to replicate the effects of PECS in prior studies by using a multiple baseline across behaviors design to examine the effects of PECS on communicative exchanges for a 3.5-year-old boy on the autism spectrum. Basic effects were detected for two behaviors but not the third, and therefore a functional relation was not established. An effect might have been detected for the third behavior had I measured total communication and not only PECS exchanges. The child's parent found PECS to be effective and beneficial for her child. This study highlights the importance of focusing on multimodal communication systems that are dynamic and flexible.

Master of Arts (M.A.), University of Dayton, 2024, Communication

In October of 2022, an anonymous Twitter user under the pseudonym Emily Smith published a Tweet that contained a screenshot of a detailed statement which alleged that Ian Cole, a defensemen for the Tampa Bay Lightning, had groomed and sexually assaulted her. The last paragraph of the statement says that “the NHL [National Hockey League] fosters a culture of misogyny”, and because of this, players feel “emboldened” to commit these acts of violence towards their victims (Smith, 2022). The NHL conducted an investigation in which they determined Cole was innocent (Associated Press, 2022). There are multitudes of instances in which players commit acts of gender violence (rishcast, 2021). For organizations like the NHL, the communication they diffuse may impact how they are viewed by publics, groups of stakeholders that can impact how the organization is viewed. This study examined how such a response impacts league reputation, word-of-mouth, behavior intention, and attitude, using the lens of situational crisis communication theory (SCCT). Results showed response strategy significantly impacts reputation, those who viewed women's rights more favorably reported a significantly lower perception of the NHL's reputation when exposed to the denial strategy, and those who perceive the NHL's reputation more favorably are more likely to engage in positive word-of-mouth practices and are more likely to alter their behavior (watch games, purchase merchandise, etc.). The results suggest that in order to maintain a positive reputation and to cultivate an individual's willingness and likelihood to engage in positive behaviors towards the NHL, the NHL should make informed and careful decisions when communicating about acts of gender violence at the hands of its players.

MA, University of Cincinnati, 2022, Arts and Sciences: Communication

Communication in parent-child relationships are fundamental in identity development and socialization, however when there is disaffiliation among core belief systems within families, stigma within parent-child dynamics and communication may emerge. The purpose of this study was to explore parent-child communication surrounding religious disaffiliation stigma experienced by young adults. A qualitative interview approach was used to collect data from participants (N = 15) between the ages of 18 to 34 who have disaffiliated from their parent's religion to any degree. Findings indicated authoritarian parenting communication regarding conversations surrounding religion was most prevalent. Second, participants expressed a range of feelings of stigma on a continuum from church-related societal pressures to interpersonal unrelenting parent standards and negative parental judgement, to internalized stigma. Also, most participants identified as LGBTQ+ (n = 9) which also influenced their feelings of stigma. Finally, avoidance communication strategies were the predominant means of managing their feelings of stigma with their family. The findings highlight how parent-child communication can have a negative impact when it comes to religious disaffiliation, especially if the child is a member of the LGBTQ+ community due to harmful anti-LGBTQ+ religious messaging.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2022, Agricultural Communication, Education and Leadership

Mothers are the predominant food purchasers for their families in American homes and influence their children's future food decision-making. As a result of American mothers' influence on their families, it is important to understand their experience purchasing food for their family members. In this study, a feminist standpoint lens was applied to understand how mothers' social identities and interpersonal conversations influence their food purchasing for their families. To understand Ohio mothers' experiences, 17 mothers were interviewed in a first-round interview establishing their identities and communication around food, after which 11 mothers were split into two focus groups to have conversations and participate in scenarios centered around identity and interpersonal conversations about food. The focus group participants were each then interviewed individually following the focus group to reflect on their experience. The transcripts from the interviews and focus groups were imported into MAXQDA22 for analysis and the data were then analyzed for themes after social groups were identified. The study identified that motherhood is a complex experience that while unique to social groups, also provides a unifying experience for mothers. Mothers' food-related decision-making was most strongly influenced by their familial identities; however, it was identified that mothers' social and cultural identities influence the ways that they make decisions and operate within their nuclear family – whether that be consistent with social and cultural messaging or contradictory to it. Participants in the study also experienced positive, negative, and neutral violations of their expectations for interactions around food, but it was observed that message senders were often trying to meet the expectations of message receivers, and in some cases message receivers would attempt to lower their expectations to avoid negative violations. Practitioners, educators, and future researchers sh (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2022, Communication Studies (Communication)

In this dissertation, I explore the experience of postpartum depression from a communicative identity standpoint. I use the Communication Theory of Identity (CTI; Hecht et al., 2005) to explore and discuss identity frames and gaps in women who experienced postpartum depression and present dominant and alternate discourses about motherhood evident in those identity frames and gaps. I conducted my research through an interpretive framework, where I used phronetic iterative analysis (Tracy, 2020) in interviewing 16 women who had experienced postpartum depression. In Chapter 1, I discuss postpartum depression, including the risk factors and outcomes associated with postpartum depression and my personal experience with the illness. In Chapter 2, I provide my rationale for the study, where I discuss the socially constructed concept of motherhood, identity challenges women face during postpartum depression, the intergroup communication framework, and the Communication Theory of Identity. Then, I present my research questions. In Chapter 3, I provide an overview of the methodology I used to address my research questions. In Chapters 4 and 5, I present my findings. Chapter 4 centers on the experience of postpartum depression, identity layers and gaps framed in CTI, and how postpartum depression is lasting within identity. Chapter 5 centers on dominate and alternate discourses circulating in women's experiences of identity. In Chapter 6, I present my implications, including implications for the Communication Theory of Identity, theoretical implications for mothering and postpartum depression research, and practical implications. Additionally, I share my study limitations and provide suggestions for future research. Finally, in the Afterward, I share more about my personal experience.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2021, Mass Communication (Communication)

Despite high adoption rates of new communication technologies in Kenya, the role of emerging technologies in the Kenyan child trafficking market and the influence of online anti-child trafficking activists in combating child trafficking remain under-researched. In this study, I have used digital ethnographic approaches that included virtual interviews, online participant observation, and social media analytics to realize five main findings. First, emerging media technology has been used by criminals to traffic children, whereas it also provides opportunities to online activists to combat child trafficking. Second, there are different types of online claims-makers actively advocating against child trafficking. Third, the claims-makers framed the exploitation and risky situations that victims of child trafficking go through as sexual exploitation, organ harvesting, infant trafficking, child marriage, organized begging, terrorism, organized crime, and child labor. Fourth, the claims-makers used the 5P framework to diagnose and offer a prognosis of the child trafficking situation. Finally, the claims-makers were able to influence diverse sentiments among their target audience. This study has practical and theoretical recommendations for researching and designing social and behavior change interventions against child trafficking and other social challenges.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2021, Communication Studies (Communication)

This dissertation investigated the communication uncertainty associated with caregivers as they provide care for their loved ones with end stage renal disease (ESRD). Caregivers of ESRD patients experience communication uncertainty due to stressors which negatively impact their quality of life (QOL) and psychosocial outcomes. The aim of the study was to improve QOL of caregivers by addressing the stressors that cause uncertainty, provide online education intervention, and evaluate that online education intervention. Managing, reducing, and coping with uncertainty are essential elements for caregivers without which they cannot provide adequate care for their loved ones with ESRD. This research involved a multistage longitudinal study which was conducted via Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) and Cloud Research (formerly known as TurkPrime) online research platforms using a multiple baseline design (MBD) approach in the middle of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. The participants self-administered a multicomponent intervention which comprised of four components namely nutrition, exercise, social support, and finances. Various instruments were used to measure QOL indicators for caregivers of ESRD patients within the frameworks of relational turbulence model (RTM) and uncertainty in illness theory (UIT). When evaluating whether caregiver uncertainty was at or above the levels of uncontrolled uncertainty (deviation from the pre-specified value), post intervention, a single-sample t-test was performed on each of the four intervention components. The results were found to be significant indicating that the caregivers experienced high levels of uncertainty in their relationship with their ESRD patients. The findings of this study confirmed that the QOL of caregivers is important as they continue to provide care for their loved ones with ESRD. The MBD revealed that this particular intervention/set of intervention components (nutrition, exercise, social support, and (open full item for complete abstract)

PHD, Kent State University, 2021, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of English

Ethnographic UX research applied to technical communication about a large scale sustainable energy project shows that an embodied understanding of the environment prevails in the public, pointing toward more effective methods for communicating scientific and policy information through improved use of metaphor in technical communication.